Bonnie Thornton Dill

29 March 2007, 4 p.m.
Olin 105

Bonnie Thornton Dill is professor and chair of Women's Studies at the University of Maryland-College Park whose research focuses on intersections of race, class, and gender with an emphasis on African American women and families. She is currently conducting a research project studying single mothers in rural southern communities.

This work has resulted in numerous publications, including Women of Color in U.S. Society, ed. with Maxine Baca Zinn (1994); Across the Boundaries of Race and Class: An Exploration of Work and Family among Black Female Domestic Servants (1994); "African Americans in the Rural South: The Persistence of Race and Poverty," with Bruce Williams, in The American Countryside, ed. Castle (1996); "A Better Life for Me and My Children: Low Income Single Mothers' Struggle for Self Sufficiency in the Rural South," Journal of Comparative Family Studies (1998); "Theorizing Difference from Multi-racial Feminism," with Maxine Baca Zinn, Feminist Studies (summer 1996); and "Valuing Families Differently: Race, Poverty, and Welfare Reform," with Maxine Baca Zinn and Sandra Patton, Sage Race Relations Abstracts (1998).

Dill has also led a number of prestigious, multi-year research projects. She currently directs the campus wide Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity at University of Maryland, a new initiative designed to promote and advance collaborative research on these topics. From 1995-1998, she coordinated a three year seminar/workshop funded by the Ford Foundation on Meanings and Representations of Black Women's Work. Before coming to the University of Maryland in 1991, Dr. Dill was a professor of sociology at the University of Memphis, where she founded the Center for Research on Women and served as director from 1982-1988. While there, she received, directed, and oversaw several large grants from the federal government and private foundations.

In addition to her scholarship, Dr. Dill has been active in curriculum transformation and diversity work for over a decade. Recently, she served for several years as a member of the National Panel for the Association of American Colleges and Universities' project, "American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy and Liberal Learning." She was also a consultant to the National Center for Curriculum Transformation Resources on Women at Towson University and to several colleges and universities in their efforts to enhance and diversify their curriculum. Dr. Dill has been the recipient of several prestigious awards for teaching and scholarship including the Mentor of the Year Award from Sociologists for Women in Society (2006), Distinguished Faculty Research Award from the Graduate School at University of Maryland, as well as both the Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award (1993) and the Jessie Bernard Award (1993) given by the American Sociological Association.

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